This has made the members of the climate cult very upset
US auctions off oil and gas drilling leases in Gulf of Mexico after climate talks
Just four days after landmark climate talks in Scotland in which Joe Biden vowed the US will “lead by example” in tackling dangerous global heating, the president’s own administration is providing a jarring contradiction – the largest ever sale of oil and gas drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico.
The US federal government is on Wednesday launching an auction of more than 80m acres of the gulf for fossil fuel extraction, a record sell-off that will lock in years, and potentially decades, of planet-heating emissions.
The enormous size of the lease sale – covering an area that is twice as large as Florida – is a blunt repudiation of Biden’s previous promise to shut down new drilling on public lands and waters. It has stunned environmentalists who argue the auction punctures the US’s shaky credibility on the climate crisis and will make it harder to avert catastrophic impacts from soaring global heating.
“Coming in the aftermath of the climate summit, this is just mind boggling. It’s hard to imagine a more hypocritical and dangerous thing for the administration to do,” said Kristen Monsell, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s incredibly reckless and we think unlawful too. It’s just immensely disappointing.”
Unlawful? How so? It’s always been lawful in the past, why would that change, just because the Brandon admin hammered out an agreement that won’t ever be put in front of the US Senate?
Even Biden’s Democratic allies have raised concerns.
“This administration went to Scotland and told the world that America’s climate leadership is back, and now it’s about to hand over 80m acres of public waters in the Gulf of Mexico to fossil fuel companies,” said Raul Grijalva, chair of the House natural resources committee. “[The] lease sale is a step in the wrong direction, and the administration needs to do better.”
Has Raul given up his own use of fossil fuels?
The sale represents a “huge climate bomb”, according to Earthjustice, one of the green groups that has lodged a lawsuit claiming it lacks a proper environmental assessment. Biden has set a target for the US to cut its emissions in half this decade before getting to net zero emissions by 2050.
